by Corri Lee
Perturbed by the new information, I retreated to my safe place—my face buried in the crook of Blaze’s neck—and groaned. What the hell had I been doing with my teen years?
Reading my mind, Blaze eased me back and patted my head. “I’ll get you something strong to drink—paralyse those philosophical brain cells you’re thinking of using.” Hunter grunted and walked with him to the bar, not looking particularly pleased to be going to greet the woman he’d be marrying in a couple of days. He and Siobhan had always seemed so hot for each other before. Why now was that sizzle gone?
We watched as the four women looked up and realised who they were standing next to. From a distance, it looked like four fanatics unexpectedly meeting a celebrity. I saw Siobhan blush for the first time, and saw the way she almost acted like Hunter wasn’t there until Blaze slapped his back in a gesture of manly cohortism.
There was too much eyelash batting and arm touching for my liking. Less from Siobhan and more from her sisters, who began to peacock and pose like professional sluts. It was, admittedly, a relief to see Blaze look so uncomfortable but watching women throw themselves at him... It was something I’d seen surprisingly little of considering his notoriety and it didn’t make me feel good inside.
The moment I saw a hair flip and a business card trade hands was the minute I’d seen enough and excused myself to go up to our suite before I did something I might never regret but would make the wedding very uncomfortable.
“Hey,” Blaze caught up with me just I was about to step into the lift. “Where are you going?”
“Bed. I’m tired.”
“Hell no.” He coaxed me back to the bar—the clucking four and Hunter had moved back to the table and were talking to Helen. “You can’t leave me down here to get pawed at by those tramps. We still have drinks and you need to protect me.” Me protect him? Ridiculous. If anything, he was going to have to keep me forcibly restrained.
But considering the unaddressed tension already between us, I sat back down in my seat and hoped the bitch wouldn’t talk to me while he ordered another round.
Her eyes met mine briefly. Nothing was said. I stuck my tongue out at her when she turned away.
“So, Emmeline.” The mother’s back straightened when Blaze walked to us with a tray of drinks, but her icy gaze remained on me. “You gained weight. You must be the size of my three girls combined.” She was damn lucky I didn’t hit her. “You came. Alone.”
I frowned at her. “My RSVP is marked ‘plus one’, Mrs. Asakuro. I’m here with my fiancé.” There was enough of an edge around the word to make her look at my left hand and shuffle awkwardly. It was baffling that she didn’t know I was with Blaze when the media was all over him, but satisfying to know that I’d apparently caught her off guard.
“Congratulations. When is the big day?”
“As soon as possible.” Two hands clamped down on my shoulders and squeezed. Either that or my whole body swelled smugly at the sight of four shocked and devastated women gaping at us slowly putting two and two together. Siobhan looked by far the most put out to see that I had the ultimate. She couldn’t mock me for wanting what she had any more. She was powerless.
However, unlike her family, she did absolutely nothing to hide her disdainful disbelief. “He’s with you? Are you shitting me? No points for taste I suppose.”
“I know, right? I have no idea what she sees in me.” Blaze pulled me up to stand and winked at me. I got it completely. He knew that she didn’t realise he was with me and pulled me back to the table so she could find out and put her jealousy on show for everyone to see. It was childish, but it was the kind of one-upmanship I needed to indulge in and he’d known it.
He kissed me, maybe a little too passionately because it made Esme and Jonathan wolf-whistle and whoop. “Maybe you were right about bed, cupcake. Come and keep me company?”
Hunter pushed to his feet and held out a hand to Blaze. “You’re coming to my bachelor party tomorrow, right?” He looked at me. “Both of you?”
“Pretty sure I don’t have a penis, Hunt.”
“Esme’s coming.”
“Okay,” Blaze wrapped an arm around my waist and shook the proffered hand. “You’ll find me there with the best girl in the room.”
I was sure Hunter muttered, “I will,” as we left.
The heat next morning was unbearable. Plans to go exploring were abandoned in favour of naked lounging in the hotel watching television and ordering champagne from room service just so we could cool ourselves with the ice bucket. As much as I loved seeing Blaze nude, the permanent scowl from being too hot and bothered somewhat killed the image of the finely sculpted Adonis.
I pulled on a t-shirt and stepped out onto the balcony, hoping there would be a breeze. There wasn’t, but I knew there would be soon. “Can you smell that?”
Blaze grunted at me from the couch, acknowledging that I’d spoken but not looking at me. I hated seeing him so despondent, knowing that I couldn’t help.
“There’s going to be a storm.”
“Don’t be stupid. The forecast is clear skies for at least another week. They’re warning wildfires.” Oh, there’d be wildfires all right if he snapped at me again. I appreciated that he was a tad overheated but it wasn’t my fault and I hadn’t deserved the way he’d snarled at me since he’d woken up. The fact he hadn’t kissed me once and had barely touched me was adding insult to injury.
“Are you going to be in a shitty mood until we go home?” Growling lowly to myself, I grabbed a light, floaty summer dress from the wardrobe and pulled it on. Cabin fever wasn’t helping my temper and I didn’t want to get into another fight. “I gotta get the fuck out of here for a while. I’ll see you at the bachelor party.”
“Wait.” I paused at the door and sighed as Blaze hopped towards me, wrestling himself into a pair of shorts. “I’ll come with you.”
“You’ve got a face like a smacked arse.”
“It’ll be worse if I have to spend more time away from you.”
Ah, God. This again. I struggled to not slam the door behind us when we stepped out into the hallway. “At some point you have to get over this separation anxiety and learn to trust that I’m not going to run away again.”
“Says who?” My back hit the wall next to the door so hard it winded me. I couldn’t see through the stars in my eyes, but I could feel myself being caged between Blaze’s arms and legs. It probably would have turned me on if not for the palpable almost violent energy permeating off his body in droves. “Who says I have to stop needing to be near you all the time? Who says I have to stop keeping you close so you never leave? I think I can justify it, Emmeline; I think I’ve earned the right to be needy.”
Anxiety oozed from his words. When I’d recovered enough from the sudden impact of the wall to see straight, I saw his eyes burning into me, but not with that white hot lust and reverence I saw all the time. I’d seen this look only once before, when he tried to make me stay with him when I found out about Natasha by attempting to fuck the hell out of me. I hadn’t realised it before, but when he got rough with me like this... This was fear.
I wriggled my hands up to cup his face. “Tell me you have sunstroke.”
“What?”
“Tell me you have sunstroke and I’ll accept it as an excuse for you acting crazy, and pretend I don’t know that something is bugging the hell out of you.”
Sighing, he wrenched himself away and pulled me up straight, putting his lips to my forehead to murmur, “I have sunstroke.”
Hand in hand, we walked through Tokyo pretending that there were no big pink elephants marching along behind us. I stood back and smiled when he was accosted for autographs and played the part of willing photographer when the shrieking fan girls shoved their smartphones at me. Somewhere along the way, I might have even laughed.
But I couldn’t ignore that something was eating at Blaze; something he wouldn’t tell me about. The only time he’d shut me out before was when it involved
Natasha, which meant that whatever it was, was huge. When he lied, it was only ever by omission so it was never outright deception, and that scared me.
It seemed like I’d crossed the world into a land of lies. The two men who meant most to me were keeping secrets. If we’d been in London I could have hammered it out of Blaze but somehow being so far away from the sanctity of our home made that kind of conversation inappropriate.
We couldn’t fight out here and take animosity to wedding, where we had to be ‘happy’. We couldn’t let anyone see the cracks and fractures. We didn’t know the city well enough to escape each other for a while after airing our grievances, not that Blaze would even let me, so it was better not to air them at all. The secrets would be left to fester until we were back on home turf, by which point the strain would have inevitably escalated.
Storms were brewing in more ways than one. Like it had in New York, something big was waiting to happen in Tokyo.
‘Hishiro’ was the place to be in Tokyo, and conveniently located right on the doorstep of our hotel. It was the kind of place with up-lighters illuminating the front of the palatial building in florescent blues and whites while searchlights flickered back and forth across the skies above it. Naturally, the door staff took one look at Blaze and Hunter’s bachelor party was quickly relocated from the main floor to the VIP lounge.
It was impressive enough, I suppose. I’d bypassed the clubbing phase as a teenager, so my experience of night clubs was limited, but it seemed to tick all the right boxes.
Loud trance music played, the bass reverberating through the walls so the whole building seemed to be alive and throbbing.
Bright, blinding disco lights projected a cycle of patterns onto the ceiling while others lit up the growing huddle of drunken dancers bouncing on the balls of their feet, intermittently hit by a strobe light.
Nearly every surface was brushed steel, which made the club appear bigger and brighter, ultra-modern and high class.
Yeah, I suppose it fit the order for a bachelor party, though I did notice a distinct lack of stripper poles and a strict no smoking policy. Cuban cigars and a lap dance were apparently off the table.
And I suppose I did well enough, too, doing a fair job of acting like everything was hunky dory. That had come through years of practice, and while there were some people who could see right through it, they were either absent, hammered or, like Blaze and I, pretending the charade wasn’t happening.
Ivy and Helen had stayed in the hotel, preferring to avoid the arrogant crowds and ghastly music. Unfortunately, Henry had still joined us but, in all fairness, he knew how to throw some shapes and have a good time. Now I did not expect that.
I declined several invitations to head on down to the main dance floor, staying in the relative safeness of VIP. It had a balcony overlooking main room, so it wasn’t like I couldn’t see them and they couldn’t see me.
“I’m there in spirit,” I’d told Blaze when he gave me that look of possessive neediness. It hadn’t been an argument I’d needed to make twice, and that made me think he was really glad of the chance to be distant but still close. I could make no good guesses at what was bothering him, but I knew him well enough to tell that the smiles he wore were symptomatic of his acting abilities, and not done with any real enthusiasm.
“Hey.” Hunter sidled up beside me and leaned on the balcony railing. “You’re not dancing.”
“You know me, Hunt. I lack rhythm and coordination.” I looked down at my four friends, Henry and Blaze dancing, swinging their arms madly and laughing. It seemed like I was always living on the periphery, but apparently I had company for once. “You’re not dancing, either.”
“Not my thing.”
“So we came clubbing because...”
Hunter sighed and swung an arm around my shoulders. “Things seem tense between you and Blaze.”
I balked. I’d been trying too hard to hide it. “You can tell?” Glancing down at the dance floor again, I saw Blaze looking back up at me. Sort of. He seemed to be looking at Hunter—or rather scowling at him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him today. It has to be more than just the heat.”
Hunter returned the scowl shot at him and dragged me through to the VIP bar by the elbow. I couldn’t tell if it was an evasive manoeuvre or simply because it was quieter there.
“What the hell is wrong between you two?” I shrugged off the hand gripping my arm and crossed them across my chest. “I thought you liked each other but you’re awfully hostile tonight.”
Hunter stiffened but tried to conceal it by waving to the bartender. “He hid a wife from you, Emmeline. I’m allowed to be pissed off about that.”
“God.” I rolled my eyes. “Why waste energy over past discrepancies? I’m not.”
“Aren’t you?” The look he gave me cut so deep it made me squirm. How did he do that—pinpoint a weakness I didn’t know I had? He’d done it before, when he’d questioned why Blaze would blow a six year stretch of celibacy for me. “Are you really okay with the fact he kept that from you?”
“He was going to tell me,” I whispered defensively, “Tallulah just got there first.”
“She shouldn’t have had to. He should have been upfront.”
“Why are you doing this?” Stepping back out of reach, I contained the urge to scream. “Why are you attacking my relationship now, when I’m so far out of my comfort zone in a different country where I have to live up to the idealistic notion people have of us? Why are you trying to make it so hard for me to fake a smile at your wedding tomorrow?”
Hunter slid a drink towards me, eyes dark and directed down into his own glass of bourbon. Alarm bells rang; he didn’t drink, yet I’d seen him do so twice in as many days.
“There’s a perpetuity implied in marriage, Emmeline. He kept his biggest secret from you. He shuts you out at a time when you feel at your weakest and puts you in a situation where you feel like you’re floundering around for solidarity. Do you really want that with him for a lifetime, being disrupted by a wife who won’t divorce him? How long are you going to wait around?”
The blow hit right where it would hurt the most and he knew it, yet he didn’t flinch when he saw the first tear slide down my cheek.
My voice wavered as I fought to keep control against the mini-tempest building up inside me. “You’re a hypocrite. You’re shutting me out, too, though your relationship is at a point of paramount importance. You’ve been forcing me to answer cryptic questions about love, which I don’t even know well enough to give a valid answer, and you’re going to walk down the aisle with a woman you don’t even look happy to see after days apart.” I stepped right back up to Hunter and jabbed a finger in his face. “I will wait as long as necessary because I have to. You had five years to get out of your own funk, stop trying to fuck with mine. You’re just pissed off because of the way we burn for each other.”
“What you have is a mutual co-dependency, Emmeline.” He looked right at me with an impassivity I had no idea he was capable of. “He’s your crutch. ‘If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with’ doesn’t work in practice. That’s why you can’t say it back to him.”
“Fuck you.”
“Emmy?” I hadn’t noticed Chris walking over, so I jumped when he put a hand on my shoulder. The look on his face said he’d heard everything. “I left my phone at the hotel, fancy a walk?”
Fuck and yes.
The transition from cool metallic chill to blast furnace hot didn’t even register when we made it outside, mostly because I broke down the second we set foot through the door. Chris pulled me around to the side of the building to a small patio area surrounded by high topiary bushes and urged me to sit with him on the dry grass.
I sniffled, getting a good whiff of the humid air. “There’s a storm coming.”
He looked up at the sky dubiously, but nodded. “Should be a good one. Impressive lightning.”
“Blaze doesn’t believe me.”
&
nbsp; “ ‘Course not. He hasn’t witnessed your mad human barometry skills yet.” But Chris had. I remembered his scepticism before I’d proven it, which was a close match to Blaze’s. It shouldn’t have stung so much when he hadn’t believed me earlier that day. “When do you think it’s happening?”
I followed his gaze into the only just darkening, cloudless sky. “Tomorrow. It’ll hold off until after the ceremony.”
“You still going to that?” Chris shoved my arm and splayed out his hands in question. “What the fuck was that, man? He goes to New York to bring you back for a guy he later trashes?”
“He didn’t bring me back for Blaze.” God knows that conversation still laid open like a gaping wound, free to have salt poured over it every time I saw Hunter again.
Chris leaned back, eyes still turned upwards. “He’s not keeping secrets, Emmy.” Well, that confirmed how much of the argument he’d heard. My mouth twisted with rueful doubt. “He’s not. He just really fucking hates Hunter.”
“What?”
“The way he talks to you. The way he looks at you like he owns you. He hates that he has to be grateful to a guy who spends most of his life in serious douche-bag territory.” Hunter wasn’t possessive over me. Was he? It made no sense for him to be, considering how he’d been keeping me at arm’s length for nine years. Still, he was a douche-bag and I could understand the dislike from Blaze’s side.
Still, I scoffed incredulously. “And that’s a reason to spend all day snapping at me but telling me that I can’t leave his side because he doesn’t believe that I won’t run away again?”
“No. But it’s a reason to make concessions for it. You prioritised Hunter over him by coming here early and he thought those days were over.”
“I didn’t—... Shit.” Not for one second had it occurred to me that Blaze had seen it that way. He wasn’t a man who seemed to get insecure so I never considered it to be an option. Prioritising Hunter hadn’t been my plan at all; I would have loved for Blaze to be able to fly out with me.